Commission Hopeful To Spend Election Day In Jail

October 31, 1986|By SALLY GELSTON, Staff Writer

Palm Beach County Commission candidate H. Scott McCary will continue to sleep on the jail floor until at least the day after Election Day, despite his plea Thursday for a release on his own recognizance so he could make a few campaign appearances.

``I would not leave this county since I am running for political office,`` McCary told Palm Beach County Judge Jerome Davis.

But Davis said he could not release McCary on a no-cash arrangement.

McCary, 57, will stay in jail until at least Wednesday, when he has another hearing, because his $10,000 bond was revoked from an August charge of grand theft from skipping out on a $605 hotel bill.

In a phone interview later from the jail, McCary said, ``the food is not bad,`` his second-floor cell is clean and the floor mattress he sleeps on is more comfortable and billowy than the thin mattress he had during his first two nights in jail.

That initial stint -- from Friday night to Sunday afternoon -- was spent in a ``filthy`` holding cell with enough bunks for only half of the 40 men locked in it, he said.

McCary, a self-employed accountant, said he never imagined when he announced his candidacy that he would be campaigning from a jail pay phone. And that only after two months of silence from mid-August to mid-October because he wanted to conceal the fact that he was jailed in DeSoto County.

McCary will return to DeSoto County on charges of aggravated battery and aggravated assault, both stemming from separate incidents in which police say he rammed men with his car.

McCary denies the charge in one case. In the other case, he said, ``I did give him a little bounce with the car.``

That car, a white 1985 Cadillac El Dorado, was repossessed this week by the bank because McCary missed the three payments due since he bought the car in late June, McCary said.

McCary requested an absentee ballot be sent to the jail so he can vote for himself on Tuesday, but Assistant Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore-Hudspeth said the address he gave as his residence is not sufficient because the woman who lives there denies any connection with McCary.

``He`s not on our active list of registered voters,`` LePore-Hudspeth said, because he has no acceptable local address.

McCary sent a letter to the elections office to try to stop the penalty clock from ticking on the $30-a-day fines accumulating from his failure to file three campaign finance reports.